Kenyan Mandazi for Breakfast and Safari with Mia

Years ago, when I was living in Sydney (read: the best city for Marta to live in), I went for a National Geographic exhibition in a beautiful old library, which presented readers’ pictures. There was one made during safari, I don’t remember where it was made, but I remember the story. Under each picture there was a short info about the author. This particular one was made by a young girl who said that she’s super lucky, because her parents present her with opportunities like this one, to go on safari and see wild animals in a natural environment. I was staring at this picture for longer than 10 minutes, it presented elephants running through a dusty area with an accompaniment of a sunset. What a view! Since then I really wanted to go on safari, but my life looked totally different and deep in my heart I knew that it will not happen.

Well… booooooooooo me from 2007th! This year it came true! Is there a better way of starting a year than making your dream come true? And what an experience it was! It’s been over a week ago and I still can’t stop thinking of it.

I’ll start with that we didn’t really plan it. We went to Kenya to visit friends and Sarika, who’s most probably the best holiday planner ever, said that we have to go to Galana Crocodile Camp and spend there a couple of days with breaks for safari. Safari part sound great, but I went there super tired after intensive 2016th and I didn’t really pay attention. Before our ride came, I heard “don’t go there with expectations, you’ll see what you’ll see, just enjoy it”. This is when my “no expectations” went to “-10 no expectations”.

We were driving off road for about 3 hours. I was listening to an awesome audiobook (too shaky to read) and looking at an orange sandy area. Locals live in huts built from sticks and an orange soil, which were passing behind the window.

When we got to the camp, I was shocked. I expected small huts on a desert area and I entered a beautiful green village. The first thing we did was to jump into a swimming pool to get rid of layers of a red dust. The thing about this camp is, that it’s located just next to a river full of crocodiles. You eat lunch and observe them waiting for something in a sand. Just tiny scary.

After few hours we went for an evening safari. Mia fell asleep within the first 10 minutes or driving. It was so relaxing and quiet and then I saw two elephants! And then zebras and giraffes, hippos, hyenas and my eyes could not cope with my brain anymore. I was literally crying out of happiness. The only thing we didn’t see were lions, but I said to myself that it does not matter, because I saw so much already that I could go home.

The next morning we got up at 5 am and at 6 we were already on safari. I saw warthogs which looked like Pumbaa from The lion king and it was so funny. And then we stopped next to big yellow rocks. And I opened my eyes wide and the same I did with my mouth because I’ve been looking on 14 lions!!! They just lay there on a sun. I wanted to scream out of excitement, but then I was afraid that I’ll end up as their lunch, so I didn’t. We were just standing there and looking and I could do it for a whole day. Then a group of elephants crossed a road just in front of us, there was a 1 month old baby. And then we saw a big group of them taking a bath in a river. OMG!!! I could not ask for more. Even when I write about it, I feel a wave of happiness.

Mia took safari very well. She loved crocodiles and she called them dinosaurs and then made the “roar” sound. It was so cute. She loved lions as well and she called them “Rysiu” – our cat’s name. She also liked elephants, especially the tiny one. She wanted to run with them. She slept through most of safari, 6 am is too early for her and the evening one was just in time for a nap. She did not complain, did not cry, she just kept asking for bananas. Yep, my kid is a tiny monkey.

During our stay we tried many African dishes, but as this is a breakfast blog, I am definitely sharing few breakfast ideas. One of my most favourites was mandazi, you just need to try them. It’s something in between a pancake and donut. It reminds me of polish “racuchy” a lot. It’s super easy to prepare and tastes great. Tomasz said that we should make them more often. Which obviously means that I should make them more often. I will, because I have 100 + 1 ideas what to serve them with. This is the simple version, with yogurt and mango puree. It’s definitely worth trying.